The invention relates to an animal waste collection devices and methods. In particular, the invention relates to an animal waste collection devices and methods that are used in combination with a bag for collecting, storing, and disposing of the animal waste.
It has been said that the American population is outnumbered by their pets. We are said to be outnumbered by our pet dogs alone, which number more than 250 million by some estimates. As these numbers increase, the public demand for animal regulation increases correspondingly, responsive to the public health and safety concerns related to the high population of pet animals.
Generally, pet owners residing in municipal regions are subject to ordinances requiring that their animals be leashed at all times in public, and restrained in private to prevent uncontrolled wandering. Recently, some municipalities have promulgated so-called "pooper-scooper" ordinances, which require pet owners to accept personal responsibility for collection and disposition of the waste material produced by their pet animals. A typical ordinance instituted recently in a provides that to avoid criminal charges, you must immediately place the waste in a plastic bag, securely tied, then place it in a solid waste container. The enforcement of some ordinance specifies fines, jail time, and probation as penalty for violation. Clearly, the social trend that started years ago in the cities has now spread to the entire country, including some rural areas.
When pet owners are subject to both leash-laws and pooper-scooper ordinances, the owner is obliged to (a) "walk" their pet on a leash and (b) retrieve and dispose of pet wastes when and where the animal decides to relieve itself. This distasteful routine is familiar to all responsible dog owners and many bystanders. Because of the distastefulness of this routine, many less responsible dog owners leave the waste where it lies. A local legislative body may respond to this problem by instituting severe sanctions for such behavior, such as the type of penalties exemplified above. Practitioners in the art respond to the problem by proposing means designed to minimize the unpleasantness of the gathering and disposal of such animal waste.
For instance, the term "pooper-scooper" originally denominated a long-handled mechanical apparatus, which is well-known in the art. A pooper-scooper is used for retrieving dog wastes without soiling the owners' hands. Unfortunately, the first such pooper-scoopers were large and awkwardly-configured devices that were inconvenient to carry and often soiled in use. In using this or later versions and designs of pooper-scoopers, a rigid tray or scoop is employed to scoop up the waste material as best as possible. This design often soiled both the vicinity of the waste and the tray itself. Further, this design and others often require use of both hands, which is extremely difficult when holding a pet's leash.
Even if a disposable bag is placed within the tray, no means are provided for cleanly gathering all of the waste material into the bag. This omission usually obliges the user to employ a twig, branch, or other readily-available item as a tool or scraper for manipulating the waste material from its lie into the bag.
Responsive to this problem, it has been proposed to add a spring-loaded clip to the bottom of a scoop for retaining a disposable plastic bag in position while "scooping" the waste material. While such an improvement may assist in solving the problem of holding the disposable bag in position for use, it may not do anything to improve the gathering operation. The user may still be obliged to grab the nearest twig or other suitable disposable scraper to gather the material into the bag. As every pet owner knows, a simple unaided scooping action relying on collection by gravity alone is not sufficient to gather and retain looser material into a bag held only on one side.
Accordingly, pet-owners (and others) are often confronted with pet waste that can be collected using only an awkward scoop or shovel or, worse, a simple plastic bag for use together with whatever other "tools" may be afforded by their immediate environment. Human nature being what it is, such unpleasant pet waste is commonly left where it lies, creating social, public-health, and legal problems for the pet owner and others. Other solutions known in the art such as, but not limited to, disposable surgical gloves, paper tissues, sandwich bags and the like do little to reduce the well-known unpleasantness of the pet sanitation task. None of these alternatives provides for simple sanitary gathering and bagging of pet waste.
Further, the waste pick-up device should be convenient to carry and easy to operate. Devices that require simultaneous use of both hands presents a problem with respect to retention of the pet leash. If the waste pick-up device requires two hands for use the leash must be put down, which is undesirable since the pet may run away, slipping of the leash onto a wrist, which is undesirable as retention of the leash is difficult and operation of the waste pick-up device is considerably hindered.
Devices such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,370,431 to Henninger et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,952 to Clapper both describe improvements to the above described pooper-scoopers and waste pick-up devices. However, each of these improvements still presents drawbacks in the complex, often two-handed, manipulation in inverting a bag used therewith, and possible user contact with the waste, both of which are undesirable.
Accordingly, a need exists in the art for a waste pick-up device that solves the above described problems. Further, a need exists for a animal waste collection device that is not awkward to use, needs only one hand to operate, environmentally friendly, and avoids the general distastefulness associated with gathering and disposing of pet waste. These problems and deficiencies are addressed by the invention, as described below.